Mizpah
by TheDescension
Summary: Because some bonds are set in stone, destined to forge and sustain, defying time, space and the laws of the universe.
1. One

So, this is a fix-it.

This is not a one-shot and will at least have another part if not more. I will try to get it updated as soon as I can.

And this is canon divergent after _Legendary._

Enjoy!

* * *

She has never wanted to leave Star City so desperately and urgently before.

Every lane that she walks through is a memory, every corner that she turns is a reminder, every inch of the city is her sister, stained and tainted with loss and pain.

She knows she will not survive here, survive this onslaught of memories, survive the sympathetic glance she knows she will be subjected to, survive being without a mission or a purpose, survive the loss of both her sister and her – she does not have a label for him, he was everything to her, yet nothing defined, _blurred lines –_ chained to 2016. She knows she has to escape, run away from the truth of reality and lose herself in the strands of time.

She is the first one to accept Rip's offer and after visiting her sister, bidding her father yet another goodbye, she meets the team. She watches as the team dwindles as Kendra and Carter leave, fly off into the horizon. It is another loss and she suddenly realizes how she had grown to love the sparring sessions and midnight conversations with Kendra. The loss seems graver in the wake of Snart's – _Leonard's_ – death and it keeps her up at night, sobbing relentlessly.

Unlike their previous mission, there is not much to do this time. There is no imminent danger, no immortal psychopath aspiring for world domination, no crook to spend her time with, playing cards or simply bantering. She is left alone most of the time; Rip preferring to spend his spare time with Gideon, engrossed in plans of rebuilding the Vanishing Point, Jax and Stein spending their time together, working on Firestorm's transmutation powers and Mick and Ray forming an unlikely yet tight friendship. She joins the team for meetings and dinners but slinks away quietly soon after, almost always feeling like a third wheel, a fish out of water.

She questions her decision to leave Star City in these moments of loneliness, scarred with memories of Leonard, laden with the belief that had he been there, things would have been a lot different.

After days of nothingness, chronological inactivity, the Waverider picks up an anomaly in Central City, 2015, and she feels just a tad better at having something to do.

By now, she has driven herself to madness, unable to function properly without having a sudden breakdown, the realization of the loss of her sister and Leonard jolting her, the pain so stark that the loss seems fresh and excruciating. It happens almost every day, at different hours of the day. Sometimes she sees the pack of cards lying somewhere innocuously and she dissolves into violent tears, sometimes she fragments into a thousand pieces at the sight of her White Canary suit, _be a hero in the light_ buzzing in her ears like an unstoppable untameable clamorous noise. The team watches her helplessly, they fail to provide the comfort she seeks, they fail to lend the shoulder she needs, they fail to return to her the arms she craves. She does not blame them, she simply does not connect with them, not in a way she did with Leonard.

Mick understands her pain better than the others do, they spend many a nights drinking together, till the alcohol numbs everything and she can no longer think or feel. They rarely talk about Leonard, neither of them are very good with words, they find it easier to hide in the temporary fragile peace that they build for themselves. Besides she is jealous of Mick as puerile and querulous as it may sound. At least Mick can jump back in time and talk to him, he has an option but she does not. Because the only moment in time the Waverider can safely travel to after the destruction of the Oculus without altering the course of history and without removing any one of them from the time line is Central City, 2013: a time before Leonard Snart knew Sara Lance, a time before they met on a rooftop, a time before Russia could be imprinted in their memories, a time before the card games and the bar brawls and the _me and you._ Perhaps the visits Mick is allowed does not help him as much as she thinks it does but he still has a damn _option._

Rip frowns at the anomaly that they detect in Central City, 2015. Gideon has no more information, the destruction of the Oculus has left the time stream in a state of permanent limbo and more often than not, Gideon fails to provide them with answers that she would have previously come up with in a blink.

"Perhaps we should not make this jump," Rip tells them when they congregate to discuss the plan of action.

"What do you mean we shouldn't?" Ray asks, the confusion clear on his face.

"We still have inadequate information about Central City, 2015 and we do not know what is causing this disturbance. We do not know if our intervention will help the matters or whether it will simply exacerbate the situation-"

"The hell does it matter?" she asks, irritation apparent in her voice. "If we mess up the time line, we can always go back and fix things."

"I am afraid it is not that simple, Miss Lance," Rip says with a shake of the head. "With the Oculus gone, the time line is more fragile and vulnerable than one can comprehend. One false step and all our efforts in defeating Savage will have been for nothing.:

She does not know how to contest that. As much as she wants to pick a fight, vent her anger somewhere, Rip has a point.

"So what you are telling us is that the only thing we can do with a timeship is hide in the temporal zone?" it is Mick who speaks and she recognizes the contempt in his voice. "This how you intend to protect the time line?"

"Until we have more information-" Rip tries to offer an explanation.

"And when will that be?" Mick growls.

"Till the data lost in the Oculus has been retrieved and we-"

"Look Hunter," Mick hisses, drawing menacingly close to Rip. "I may not be a Time Master but I know a thing or two about time travel mumbo jumbo and there is no way in hell that I will let a damned anomaly in my own city go unnoticed because you are scared that you will mess up the time line."

"Rory is right," Jax chips in. "For all we know, this could have something to do with one of us here and if you do not take care of it, we could potentially disappear from the time line, leaving Savage alive."

Rip begins to say something but is cut off by Mick once again as the burly man wraps a hand around their captain's throat and hisses, "Listen to the kid."

Everyone watches in stunned silence before Rip eventually relents, "Alright, fine, strap in."

* * *

Central City, 2015, indeed turns out to be a false alarm. Everything seems to be in perfect order and Gideon fails to trace the original anachronism, much to Rip's annoyance.

"Don't start with the moral lecture, please," she tells him before he can begin to show his irritation.

He glares at her and then barks, "The Waverider cannot make a jump before twenty four hours now."

"We can crash in 2015," she reminds him, a wry smile firmly in place.

"Of course," he mutters to himself.

"And," Rip tells the team, eying her and Mick especially. "Please try to keep yourselves within the confines of the Waverider."

* * *

When sleep eludes her again that night, her demons dancing in the darkness, she decides to leave the ship. For the first time in days, she has a place to go to, hide somewhere in the cacophony of the civilization, a welcome change from the void of the temporal zone.

She slips out of the ship quietly, not rousing anyone. Like always, the Waverider has landed in a desolate stretch of land and she has to walk for a long time before she finally winds up in a place filled with people.

The realization does not hit her at once, it creeps on her slowly as she sees the odd couple plastered against a wall in a darkened alley, wrapped in a warm embrace, as she sees the group of drunken friends stumble out of a bar, that she is lonely and no matter how much she tries she can never find peace or solace here.

She takes to the rooftops then, sticking to the shadows she knows best, doing the only thing that still connects her to Laurel and Leonard: protecting people. She is not dressed in her suit but wishes she were, makes her feel more like a hero.

As the night grows, the city turns quieter, falling into a state of slumber. The night air is cold, brushing against her skin and making her shiver.

Even if she thinks of it subconsciously, she does not allow the thought that she may run into the Leonard Snart of 2015 to attain much foreground. She has long since learnt that hope has its own mendacious ways.

It is the cry of a woman that cuts through her thoughts and sends her adrenaline rushing, her feet working on automatic now, her instinct guiding her to where trouble is. It is the same old scene: one young girl, hardly twenty, pale and frightened up against four brutes. She knows she can take them down all by herself with a little bit of luck and effort since she is weaponless.

There is a small voice of reason that tells her to call for backup: Mick would suffice, but she finds herself unnaturally drawn to the danger, the bloodlust she thought she had conquered raising its ugly head under her skin, her mind and her body aching for a fight, one window to let go of all the cooped up rage and grief.

She descends from the roof, taking down one man with her, the element of surprise working.

"Let her go," she says calmly, the slightest of anger in her voice.

"Or what?" one of them sneers.

She can smell it in their breaths: the stench of alcohol. It is to her advantage really that they are drunk.

"Let her go," she repeats, much more slowly, a threat hanging in her words.

"And if we did, could we keep you?" the same man speaks, a lecherous smile on his face as his eyes rake over her body shamelessly.

"Yes, can we keep _you,_ blondie?" the second man slurs.

She feels her blood boil at that tone but knows she cannot do anything till she has the girl in safety.

She makes eye contact with the petrified girl who has broken down into tears. "Hey?" she says softly. "It will be alright."

"Never make promises you cannot keep, blondie," the second man says, caressing the girl's cheeks.

She snaps at that; all rationality and control gone, she rushes towards the men, taking down the man who had the girl with a few punches and kicks before his sloshed friends can understand what has transpired.

 _One against two._

The girl has escaped by now and she only hopes that she will get away from this place as soon as possible.

She watches as the remaining men glare at her with an animalistic glint in their eyes. They charge towards her simultaneously and she breaks into a run towards them. She knows she does not have much time before the ones she has knocked unconscious come to their senses.

She meets their disoriented and discordant punches with equal force, every attack of theirs with equal ferocity, every offense with equal brutality.

She has the upper hand and flips one of them onto the ground when she feels a gun on her head. True to her fears, one of the knocked out men is up and has a gun pressed against her head.

"Time to back off, blondie," he says against her neck, his breath disgustingly falling on her skin.

She does not feel confident anymore and tries to break away from the arms of her captor.

"Uh oh, one false step and I might end up spilling your beautiful brain all over this place," he hisses.

And then, everything happens in a blur: the familiar sound of the cold gun charging behind her, the grip on her arm loosening and the man falling down with a thump. She watches as the remaining men are iced by-

"Are you okay?" the familiar drawl reaches her ears as _Leonard_ comes in full view.

This is too much for her and she finds herself faltering till her back is pressed against the wall of a building. His eyes follow her and he reaches out a hand to keep her steady.

"Are you okay?" he repeats.

She nods in a daze and then mutters incoherently, "I am fine."

She does not know how to respond to this situation: all she wants to do is run a hand down his cheek, just feel him, just live this moment where Leonard Snart is alive and well and is standing across her with the shine in his eyes and the tiny imperceptible tilt in his head, his words coming out of his mouth in that familiar annoying drawl. She knows it is not him, not _her_ Leonard, not entirely but it somehow still feels the same.

"Are you sure you are alright because you look like you are in shock?" he asks her, a tiny amused smile tugging at his lips.

She would be lying to herself if she said she had not wanted this to happen but somehow everything unfolding just like she had hoped, unnerves her, unsettles her.

"I… just… your gun," she says, feigning surprise.

He narrows his eyes at her, perhaps with a hint of suspicion, "Does not concern you."

She does not understand why his answer bothers her so much, why it hurts so much, why she had expected an answer any different from this.

 _Cold hearted bastard._

She straightens herself up and looks him square in the eye, perhaps searching for a tiny part which contains her Leonard. He lets go of her hand and she immediately longs for the reassuring contact.

"I am Sara and-"

"Not interested," he cuts her off. "You can just walk away now and I will make sure that these bastards don't get to you. That's it."

She stares at him hopelessly, wondering how the same blue eyes could look at her so differently, so _indifferently,_ how the same voice could spit out those words and push her away.

"O… Okay," she replies after a while, resignation in her tone.

He moves away slowly then, making way for her to leave, all the while keeping his piercing gaze fixed on her. She makes to move, somehow this moment reminiscent of her last moment with her Leonard, when all she could do was walk away and leave him behind.

"Thank you," she says, a desperate attempt at holding onto him just a little longer.

"You are welcome," he replies curtly, his body language screaming at her to just go.

She walks away, suddenly sick of Central City, 2015, sick of her life, her fate, her destiny and everything.

She hates it all.

The walk down the alley feels too long, unending. She has the urge to turn back, steal a look but she knows it will leave a pit within her that will slowly gnaw away at her existence and so she walks, her legs dragging her away.

And then there is a gunshot, a loud sound that shakes her and pierces through her numbness. Turning back she finds him collapsed on the ground, hand clutching his stomach where the bullet must have torn through him.

She flies to him and collapsing beside him, she grabs his hands desperately.

 _Not again._

"I told you to get the hell out of here," he tries to yell but his words die in a splutter of coughs.

She is aware of the tears rolling down her cheeks and paying him no attention, she cries, the time line the least of her concerns, "I cannot let you die because of me."

He hisses in pain and she whispers helplessly, "Don't die on me, Leonard."

His eyes widen and mingled with the pain on his face is shock. "How do you-"

And then his breathing falls flat, his eyes closing in a loud grimace.

She clutches his arm, crying futilely for him to wake up and when she detects a pulse, weak but present, she calls Mick, howling for help, alone in the cold night.

* * *

They get him into the med bay just in time and Gideon assures them a seventy percent chance at full recovery.

She collapses on the floor of the med bay then, in full sight of everyone, letting her tears claim her, hoping that they would in some way wash away the pain too.

* * *

She does not expect Rip to go easy on her and honestly, she does not care any longer about what Rip thinks.

"You jeopardized the time line, Sara," he tells her, holding back just a little because she truly looks broken.

"I am sorry," she whispers, too tired to fight, just wanting to lie down beside him in the med bay and curl up in his arms till she has time, till they have time.

"Sara-"

"Look Rip, I really am sorry," she says. "I know I messed up and I am sorry. I did not want for this to happen but it somehow did and I could not save him last time, I could not let that happen again. I-"

She breaks down into a fresh volley of tears with that.

"That's enough," Mick cuts in. "Just leave her alone, Hunter."

And he does.

* * *

They leave her alone with him, give her some of the time she could have had with him, should have had with him.

She sits in front of him, his hand tightly clasped in hers.

"I tried to save you," she starts helplessly. "Tried to save your sorry little heroic ass the last time you decided to leave all of us but Rip said that the events in the Vanishing Point could never be altered because-"

She sniffs, taking a long glance at his pallid face.

"-because no time exists there and what happens once can never be rewritten. And thanks to you, the Waverider cannot fly to all places and time like before and I could not even warn you. You are an absolute idiot, crook."

She laughs mirthlessly and then falls into a silence after that, no longer knowing what to say, no longer being able to articulate the tangled web of words in her head. She waits for a sign – a twitch of the lips, a movement of the fingers – to know that he can hear her but there is nothing.

"I wear this stupid pinky ring now," she says after a while. "It's not a keepsake, it's a reminder that even the best laid plans can go sideways but you probably already know that."

And then, "I miss you, Leonard."

The admission is soft but clear and she weeps knowing he will never know it.

There is a knock on the door and she sits up straighter, wiping off her tears.

"It's time," Mick tells her. "We will give him an amnesia pill and then get him back to a safehouse."

She nods quietly, not trusting her voice.

"Do you need another moment?" Mick asks her quietly.

"I…"

"I'll wait outside."

She curls into a ball beside him, letting her head sink into his chest. She inhales the scent of him, feels his heart beat under her, feels his breath come out steadily and then she leans in, pressing her lips against his. It is different this time: she does not get a response from him, does not get that bewildered look but it still makes her heart race.

She watches after that as Mick and the rest of the team filter in. Mick has a quiet moment with his partner before Ray mixes the amnesia pill into the IV and they all leave, bidding him a final unspoken goodbye.

She is left alone with him again and she closes the distance between them and wraps her fingers around his.

It is a hasty decision, an impulsive one and defying her conscience, defying every part of her that screams at her to stop, succumbing to her selfish desires, she whispers to him, "Will- Can you please remember this for me, Leonard?"

She startles when his fingers twitch in her grasp but she whispers nonetheless, "The Oculus has a fail-safe."


	2. Two

Hi.

So what's it been? Almost a year? Hehe. I am deeply embarrassed at how long this update took. I got terribly busy with life and found no time to write.

My sincere apologies.

There will be another chapter to this, which hopefully will be up within two weeks or so.

I hope this chapter makes up for this terribly long wait.

Enjoy!

* * *

Sara wakes up all at once: the sleep being robbed from her in one cruel snatch, no time to ease herself into this painful existence of hers.

There is a throbbing ache in her head and her body feels sore. She stretches her limbs and makes to sit up straight, the movement making her a little more aware of the acute pain in her body.

It does not strike her immediately, takes a full minute of consciousness till she finally understands and _feels_ the full impact of what she did last night.

She lets out a loud curse and ignoring the biting ache in her back, dresses up as fast as she can.

She rushes to the kitchen where the team has gathered for breakfast.

"Did time change?" she bursts in.

She is met with confused and curious looks from everyone.

"What do you mean?" Jax asks, trading a bewildered look with Stein.

By now, she has started to question her actions. If time would have indeed changed, the team would have noticed the aberration and would have informed her. But here they were, enjoying breakfast peacefully in perfect normalcy.

Till she barged in.

It occurs to her how utterly ridiculous her question must have sounded.

Maybe she had overestimated the gravity of what she did last night: all she had done was whisper a few words to a sedated man.

"Miss Lance?" Rip's confused voice drags her to the present, his expression mirroring his tone.

She mentally curses, knowing how her impulsive well meaning actions would have surely planted a few seeds of doubt in the minds of her team mates.

"Never mind," she mutters incoherently, taking a few steps back.

"Sara!" Rip calls after her, but by then she has escaped to the confines of her quarters, and has dissolved into another set of tears.

* * *

She does not even know why she is crying; it's just that she is. She hates this crying version of hers, hates this person she becomes who can do nothing but dissolve into tears at everything.

But she has no idea how to transcend this person either, does not know how to fight these tears and triumph over them, does not know how to go back to becoming the Sara Lance who was indestructible and unconquerable, the Sara Lance who had a sister and a friend, a _lover_ perhaps.

She does not know how to find that strength to become her previous self, does not even know if that strength still exists within her.

And so she crumbles, lets herself cry and crawl deeper into the pit of numbing pain and self pity that she does not know a way out of.

* * *

She is a fool to believe her antics at breakfast will not send their captain knocking at her door.

She ignores Rip initially, irks him further by not answering his questions and locking her door.

"Miss Lance," he tells her a few minutes into the ordeal. "I can open this door with a few instructions to Gideon. This resistance of yours really isn't helping anyone."

 _Of course._

"What do you want?" she hisses, forcing her sobs to stop.

"I simply want to talk to you," she can already hear the exasperation in his voice.

"Well, I don't want to talk to you."

"Miss Lance," he starts with a tone of impatience, but mellows immediately with a sigh. "Sara, I believe you have done something that could inadvertently cause a time aberration. And if you have left any scope for time to change, it needs to be addressed and rectified immediately."

"Time hasn't changed yet, has it? We'll handle it if anything goes wrong," she mumbles.

"Sara," the exasperation is back in his voice. "We no longer have that liberty. With the Oculus destroyed, we no longer know which events are pivotal to the timeline, hence we cannot travel to all instances in time. And if your actions have the potential to cause an irreparable damage to time, we need to erase it right now."

He is only met with silence.

"Can I come in?" he asks her finally.

"Yes," she whimpers, because she doesn't know what else to do.

The door is unlocked immediately and Rip walks in hesitantly.

He takes in her tear stained face and softens almost at once.

"Sara," he tells her softly. "It's not too late. You just have to tell me what you have done."

She takes in a deep breath and bracing herself for an angry tirade of words that she admittedly deserves, she says, "I told Leonard something after you gave him the memory potion. And I know he was unconscious but I think he heard me."

He looks at her for a second as if she is paranoid, but quickly recovers and asks, "Told him what?"

"I told him that the Oculus has a failsafe," she lets out, forcing herself to look at Rip and acknowledge the gravity of her mistake.

"Oh, bloody hell," he mutters, and then erupts. "Miss Lance, do you have the slightest understanding of the possible repercussions of your reckless actions?"

She begins to apologize, begins to tell him that she meant no harm: it had been a moment of weakness, a glitch in her actions and she was going to fix it no matter what it took.

"She understands she screwed up, okay?" Mick cuts in, entering her room with a sense of authority Sara has never seen before.

Fixing Rip with a glare, he continues, "You don't have to give her hell for what's already done."

"Mr. Rory-" Rip starts.

"Mick, it's okay. I deserve this," Sara cuts off Rip. "I shouldn't have done what I did. If my words plant even the slightest seed of doubt in Leonard's mind, he might end up not joining us in 2016. Which means the Oculus would remain, and Savage and the Time Masters would win."

"Precisely," Rip sighs, with a shake of his head.

"Here's what I don't understand," Mick says.

"Bloody hell, now what?" Rip asks him, with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

"Blondie never told Snart not to join us, or not to destroy the Time Pigs and their toys. She only told him that their toys had unscrew buttons built into them."

Rip glares at Mick for a second, before explaining. "It's still risky, Mr. Rory. We don't know how Miss Lance influenced Mr. Snart. We have to assume the worst and fix the change."

"So what do we do?" Sara asks hesitantly.

"We travel back to Central City, 2015 and make sure Mr. Snart does not meet you," Rip says.

* * *

"I don't see anything that could go wrong with this," Ray comments with an optimistic grin on his face that only makes Sara want to punch him.

"I wouldn't speak so soon, Dr. Palmer," Rip says wryly, eyeing Sara with what she recognises as disappointment.

To be honest, she is disappointed in herself too and finds no reason to blame Rip for feeling that way about her.

"So we split up into two teams? One helps the old Sara and one keeps Snart away from the alley?" Jax asks.

"Basically, yes. But we need a convincing plan to keep Mr. Snart occupied," Rip states.

"Why not send Mick to keep him busy?" Ray asks.

"I was in jail then, Haircut," Mick grumbles, taking a swig from the beer bottle in his hand.

"How unusual," Stein mumbles under his breath.

"I'll keep him busy," Sara comments for the first time, speaking from the corner she had morbidly crept into.

"No, absolutely not!" Rip is vehement in his objection.

"Why not?" she counters. "Because you think I cannot handle my emotions?"

 _She does not believe she can._

There is an awkward beat of silence when all that her teammates can do is uncomfortably glance at her and Rip.

"It's not safe, Miss Lance," Rip finally says.

"Rip, I can hold my own. I need to do this, please-" she feels her voice breaking.

"You'll sit this one out. I'm sorry," he cuts her off.

"Rip-"

"We don't have an option but to send her in," Ray breaks off their confrontation.

"I beg your pardon?" Rip asks, visibly taken aback.

"I don't imagine Snart will want to chat up random strangers like the rest of us. I mean, he never seemed like a fan of nuclear physics and the sorts of it," Ray notes, with a slight roll in his eyes.

"He hated annoying British brats too," Mick chips in before Rip can say anything else.

"Looks like I'm going in then," Sara says, sitting up a little straighter.

"Indeed," Rip mutters.

* * *

Their plan goes like this: Rip and Ray are to help her previous self fight the thugs in the alley while Sara keeps Leonard away from the place.

She is concealing her knives and daggers underneath her clothing when Mick walks in.

"I know you feel like you know Snart, but the person you are about to meet will be nothing like the one you knew," he says without any ado.

"I know," she sighs.

 _Cold hearted bastard._

"Good."

* * *

"Miss Lance?" Rip knocks at her door.

"What?" she asks sharply.

"You need to wear this," he says, holding up a black wig in his hand.

"Why?" she asks, a thorough expression of confusion on her face.

"We can't rewrite Mr. Snart's memories any more," he explains calmly. "Tampering with memories of one instant can have disastrous consequences. So he'll remember everything that happens tonight. Given how he is destined to join the Legends, we cannot have him remember you."

He makes a fair point and Sara sees no point in being uncooperative.

"I can't believe you chose black," she mumbles.

"Oh, it's just a personal preference of mine."

* * *

She is a portrait of all sorts of preposterity, Sara thinks as she runs a hand through the ill fitting black wig.

"Mr. Snart is inside the bar. He is sitting alone in the corner," Gideon tells her over the mic.

"Thank you, Gideon," she says as she nervously walks into the bar.

 _How difficult could it possibly be?_

It takes her a second to locate him: he is unmistakable in his blue parka. Besides he has always stood out in a crowd to her.

She lets out a sigh and a few measured steps later, she is standing behind him.

"Seat taken?" she asks as casually as she can, indicating to the empty seat beside him.

He cocks his head to the side, just enough to take a proper look at her. He assesses her for a quick second with eyes ever so perceptive.

And with every glance of his, she feels just a little more exposed; naked.

"Depends," he drawls, his eyes locking themselves on hers.

"Pray tell, on what?"

He quirks a smile at her and she can see she has caught his attention and piqued his interest.

"Never mind," he says, a crooked smile on his face, as he pulls out a chair for her.

She realises she is a lot better suited to handle a Leonard Snart who does not share her memories this time. It still hurts, but doesn't kill her.

"Chivalry, I see," she manages to grin at him licentiously.

"Don't let appearances fool you."

She gives him an eye roll and says, "I'm Sara."

"Leonard."

"A regular here?" she asks.

"You could say that," he says.

There is a beat of silence that follows. She racks up her mind to come up with something to say but finds herself failing.

Honestly, she does not know how to create small talk with a man she had bared her soul naked to who had told her about a 'me and you', who had held onto her in the freezing clutches of death, who had died to save her and the others.

She simply does not know to talk to him about trivial things after everything, especially because no matter what she tells him right now, he will eventually die and leave her alone and broken.

"So, Sara," he brings her back to the present. "Tell me what you are doing here."

"Looking for a quick drink after-"

"No, I mean, what are you _really_ doing here?"

She freezes for a second but tells him nonchalantly, "I don't know what you are talking about."

"Of course you do," he says, his voice bordering on the menacing, as he leans a little closer.

Sara tries not to pay attention to how close they really are or to look into his eyes that are trained on her and are studying her meticulously.

"I still don't know what you are saying."

"The last time a stranger sat beside me, they tried to put a knife in my eye. Despite the fact that the said knife ended up in his eye, you can well imagine why I have my issues."

"I don't think you are in the right kind of business then," she ventures boldly.

"Right is a pretty relative word."

"Agreed."

"Are you in the _right_ kind of business?"

"Hardly."

"That doesn't help the gnawing sense of foreboding that you want to stab me to death."

"I don't want to stab you to death, but for all you know, I might have five knives tucked in my clothes."

This is dangerous territory she is veering into, and she likes it. She relishes the challenge of having to keep up with Leonard Snart.

"Five?" he drawls.

"Five," she ascertains.

"I bet you couldn't hide five in _that_ ," he says, his eyes unabashedly roving her body.

"What if I prove you wrong?" she challenges, despite the voice in her head telling her to stop.

"And how would you prove me wrong?" he smiles, almost appreciatively.

"Only one way to do that, huh?" she whispers, leaning in without even knowing what she is doing.

The only thing that she is aware of is the rapid pacing of her heart and a tipsy unsteady conscience which only wants her to plunge deeper into this mess.

"Miss Lance," Rip's voice crackles through the mic. "Our job here is done. Eject immediately."

But she is far too gone by then and is consumed with a maddening need to feed this hungry void inside her, to quench this desperate thirst within her. And the only person she _knows_ who can help her is currently leaning into her, his lips mere centimeters away from hers.

And so she crashes into him, without so much as an afterthought. The feel of his lips is foreign yet familiar, and somehow it doesn't matter. It's him and it's her, and if she can have nothing else, at least she can have this.

He pulls back first, a look of unsettlement etched on his otherwise infuriatingly unperturbed face.

"Sara," her name sounds like a worship on his lips.

"Miss Lance," Rip's voice quickly disturbs the cocoon of peace she had built around herself. "Leave that goddamned bar, at once."

 _Fuck._

"I have to go," she says.

He furrows his eyebrows but asks no more.

"I'm sorry," she whispers before running out into the lonely dark night.

* * *

She boards the Waverider, once again broken and weak.

And she wonders just how many times she will have to kiss him and abandon him, helpless against the hand of fate.

* * *

Meanwhile in a place far away, in a time far away, Sara Lance grins cheekily at Leonard Snart.

"You wanna steal a kiss from me, Leonard? You better be one hell of a thief."

He sits up straighter at that, as if meeting the challenge in her words and tells her, "I am."

Everything falls into place after that. He leans across and claims her lips, surprising her for the tiniest of moments.

She recovers quickly and finds herself kissing him back, realising just how much she had wanted this without ever truly knowing it.

They find their own pace, settle into their own rhythm and do not stop till Gideon announces that they have reached the Oculus Wellspring.

But by the time they pull back, trying to contain the smiles coloring their faces, Leonard Snart starts to form a memory.

* * *

He does not fully understand what is happening. His mind seems to be firing at a pace he cannot cope with, bombarding him with memories that he does not even recognize as his own.

But despite the manic pandemonium in his mind, he remembers and recollects two things vividly.

First, kissing a woman who had knives tucked in her clothes, a year back in a bar in Central City who reminds him a little too much of Sara Lance.

Second, desperate words from a woman who he is entirely sure was Sara Lance, "The Oculus has a failsafe."


	3. Three

Hey.

So this is it: final chapter. I had plans of getting this done sooner but I got a little distracted.

I would like to thank everyone who has read this, favorited, followed and given me very precious feedback. I have written in a lot of fandoms for a lot of ships but there is no other community that is as warm and kind as the Captain Canary one. Thank you so much, you guys.

I hope this chapter makes up for all the angst of the previous chapters. Enjoy!

* * *

First, Sara has a headache, a crippling pain that forces her to collapse onto the floor of the Waverider. She feels her memories being toyed with, being arranged and rearranged, flung across her mind carelessly and she almost screams because it hurts too much. And then the ache is gone, the biting pain being replaced by a dull steady throb, a reminder that something has changed.

"Gideon?" she manages.

"Miss Lance?"

"Did something happen to-"

Then, the ship trembles violently, rocking unsteadily in the time stream.

Sara is thrown against a wall, and she barely manages to hold on till the ship finally steadies.

"What the hell was that, Gideon?" she groans.

"It was a time aberration, I'm afraid, Miss Lance. Something has happened that has wreaked havoc in the time stream.

 _Shit._

Sara begins to panic at that. She knows what is wrong, knows it a little too well.

Her head still throbs dully and she is beginning to figure out everything slowly, every piece of the jigsaw finally fitting when the speakers built into the walls of her room almost explodes with their Captain's voice, "Team meeting in the bridge, right now!"

* * *

She is the last to arrive because she walks with deliberately slow steps.

She knows what has happened and she cannot even bring herself to think of what they will have to do next to fix a mess that she created because she couldn't help but whisper a few words to a man with the hope that it would save the crook she had started to fall in love with.

 _So much for that plan._

For all she knows, her next mission might just be to ensure that Leonard blows himself up along with the Time Masters, because from what she can understand, that event has been thwarted which has resulted in this aberration.

She does not believe she can live through that again.

There is already excited chattering going on when she enters the bridge.

"So what exactly are you telling us, Gideon?" Rip asks impatiently as the team stands in a circle around the hologram of the artificial intelligence.

"It appears that even though the Oculus has been destroyed, it hasn't had the same effects on time, due to which we felt that tremor."

 _How?_

Sara is thoroughly confused by now. This isn't what she was expecting: if her actions had indeed made a change and she is sure they did, because her memories are messed up right now, the Oculus should still exist.

"What kind of effects are we talking about?" Martin questions.

"I'm unable to fully comprehend the aftermath at the moment," Gideon replies. "I have very limited access to the time stream and it will take me more time to survey the timeline and detect changes."

"So what can we do now?" Ray asks.

"We can try to figure out the source of this aberration," Rip says. "While Gideon scouts the timeline for changes, we manually look for events that could have led to this."

"Can't your genius computer do two things at a time?" Mick grumbles from the sidelines.

"Technically, I am a supercomputer, Mr. Rory," Gideon instantly replies before Rip can express his scorn and distaste. "And no, with the time stream in such a precarious position, I cannot run two programs with optimum efficiency."

Mick shrugs nonchalantly.

"Miss Lance, you have been awfully quiet," Martin suddenly notices.

"I..." Sara flounders for words.

She had not realized how odd it must have seemed to the rest of the team to see her not participating in the discussion; she had been lost in her own world, trying to make sense of it all.

"Do you have something to tell us that we don't know?" Rip suddenly asks, scrutinizing her.

 _Damn._

She knows she has to tell them whatever she suspects: her time jumps and encounters with Leonard had resulted in this aberration.

"Actually, yes," she finally says, her heart beating inexplicably fast in her chest. She feels her breathing hike as everyone shifts their attention to her. "I think this has something to do with Leonard."

But before she can tell her team what she believes has caused the aberration, she collapses onto the floor, senseless.

* * *

It's her memories swimming around in her head that make her collapse.

Sara no longer remembers kissing Leonard Snart while he had his hand firmly inside a killing machine. She doesn't remember that desperate final kiss of death. In fact, she realizes, she is starting to forget ever being there in the first place.

What she remembers though is kissing Leonard within the safe walls of the Waverider, the slow yet assured brushing of their lips, the idiotic grins that had spread across both their faces.

 _She must be going mad._

But then another memory hits her and she feels herself reeling: a fading figure running behind her with the cold gun in his hand just as the Oculus exploded in the background.

* * *

She wakes up in the med bay a little while later, the entire team surrounding her.

She feels like a spectacle and she hates it.

"How are you feeling, Sara?" Martin asks her.

"Just great," she mumbles, attempting to sit up a little straighter.

She can feel the expectant gazes burning into her, the silent questions in them weighing her down.

"You said something about Leonard before passing out," Mick is the first one to voice everyone's thoughts.

"Jesus, Mick, she just woke up," Ray gasps.

"Nah, I'm fine," Sara dismisses his concern.

There is a pause, one beat of silence, till Rip assumes control. "Why do you believe this has something to do with Mr. Snart?"

"It's hard to explain," Sara sighs. "I... I just know. You have got to trust me on this."

No one looks convinced so she continues, "Before the tremor today, I had this headache. I passed out because of that. And ever since that, I have been remembering certain things and forgetting other things. It's like my memories have been rewritten."

Rip's expression clears, realization dawning upon him.

"Gideon!" he says hurriedly. "I need you to run a biometric scan through the entirety of time and throw up results that match with Mr. Snart's."

* * *

"You have got to be kidding me," Jax gasps as Gideon displays five men looking exactly like Leonard on the screen.

"What is this?" Mick asks, clearly surprised.

Sara hasn't been able to get a single word out. She has been staring at the screen, in numb disbelief.

"It's something called time scattering," Rip finally says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Now I have never seen anything like this ever happen before but theoretically, this occurs when time undergoes a change that it does not want to-"

"Time wants things?" Ray wonders aloud, evidently impressed.

"In a way of speaking, yes," Rip explains. "And it scatters the source of that unwanted change throughout itself to perhaps save itself from further damage."

"So let me get this straight," Jax says. "Time changed and Snart changed it, so he has been hacked off into different parts and scattered throughout time as a form of punishment?"

"That's one way of looking at it, yes," Rip ascertains.

"Fascinating," Martin gasps.

"But what did he do to change time?" Jax asks.

"Oh, the Oculus!" Ray says excitedly but slows down almost immediately. "But we stopped Sara from telling him about it. He couldn't possibly know."

"Yes, about that, I'm hoping Miss Lance can answer a few questions for us," Rip says, giving her a meaningful glance.

"What?" Sara asks, genuinely confused.

"The last time we jumped to Central City, 2015, did you tell Mr. Snart about the Oculus?" Rip asks, a shadow of a doubt lingering in his voice.

"What? No!" Sara exclaims in disbelief.

"Then how do you explain whatever has happened?" Now there is accusation in his voice and Sara detests it.

"I don't know! You're the captain of a time ship, aren't you supposed to know?" she spits out.

She hates herself the moment the words leave her mouth and tries to salvage the situation; Rip may be annoying but he has good intentions. "Why don't we get all these Leonard aberrations on board and ask them what happened?"

* * *

Sara knows there will be another person on this ship who will be affected by the turn of these events just as bad as her, perhaps a little worse.

She wanders through the ship till she finds him.

"You okay?" she asks.

"Just fine," he replies gruffly as he torches a few empty bottles with the heat gun.

"I have been having these flashes of memories, Mick and they seem too... real," she tells him.

He glances at her uncomfortably, unsure of where this is going.

"I can't tell the others because they probably think I'm either crazy or I'm lying," she confesses.

She has noticed the shift in everyone's demeanor ever since that confrontation with Rip on the bridge. She doesn't blame them completely either.

"What is it, blondie?"

"I remember Leonard running behind me as I boarded the ship while the Oculus exploded."

"You mean you don't remember leaving him behind?"

"No," she whispers.

"Maybe this is something you want to believe," Mick tells her sagely, almost surprising her.

There is a pause and then he continues, "I saw Leonard for a few days after the Oculus. It's normal to wish for things that could have happened but didn't."

Sara sighs.

"Thanks, Mick."

"Not a problem, blondie."

* * *

Their first stop is the year 3167 where despite the virtual extinction of criminals thanks to strict laws and advanced technology, time scattered Leonard Snart has managed to set up a lavish empire on the strength of stolen goods.

"We do it my way this time," Rip says, waving what Sara recognizes as the instrument that knocked her out in a long forgotten time in Tibet.

"Look look, it's the kidnapping gun," Mick says drily.

* * *

"Where to, next?" Sara asks tiredly as Ray carries the unconscious Leonard from 3167 into the Waverider.

"The roaring 20's," Rip says, without any humor in his voice. "It appears Mr. Snart has been pulling the strings in the notorious razor wars down under."

* * *

They continue till they pick up all five of the time scattered Leonards.

The third Leonard had ensconced himself in the ancient Roman empire, as a much respected architect, much to the team's surprise.

Their next stop is the Middle Ages and Leonard is rescued from a dungeon he had been locked in for stealing from a knight.

Their quest ends in a pirate ship as they take Buccaneer Leonard hostage.

* * *

"What do we do now?" Ray asks as the team stares clueless at the different Leonards.

"We coalesce these fragments of Mr. Snart," Rip says proudly.

"No way!"

"You can't do that!"

"Gideon?" Rip calls out. "Time for a few miracles."

* * *

It is a miracle indeed.

Sara watches in fear and amazement and joy as a beam of light falls on the different versions of Leonard followed by a blinding burst of energy followed by the appearance of one Leonard.

Still unconscious but alive.

She gasps and has to take measured breaths to keep herself functioning.

"I'll pretend like that wasn't weird," Jax mutters.

And she finds herself laughing at that, uncontrollably and senselessly.

* * *

She doesn't leave the room till he wakes up; she has abandoned him too many times before.

Mick stays with her too but they hardly talk: simply sit there waiting for the man they had believed was gone forever to wake up and somehow lessen the pain of both their existences.

* * *

"What the hell am I wearing?"

Her head snaps up at his voice, her eyes immediately meeting his in one clear moment of absolute happiness, till he tears his gaze away to absorb the surroundings.

"Your time apparition was a pirate," Mick tells him. "So that's what you are wearing."

"My time- what?"

"He means, aberration," Sara says, fighting hard to keep the tremble from her voice.

He regards her with a long glance this time, observing her keenly and reverentially and then he drawls, "Sara, that black wig back in 2015 didn't really suit you."

* * *

It's another team meeting in the bridge.

"I already knew that the Oculus had a failsafe," Leonard tells everyone. "So I went in with some preparation."

"Why didn't you tell the rest of us?" it's a sincere question from Rip.

"What was I supposed to say? I suddenly have psychic powers and know your former bosses are not complete idiots."

"Not in those words, maybe," Rip mutters. "Please continue."

He continues with a self satisfied grin on his face, "So I took a few handy devices because I had no idea how the failsafe worked-"

He gives her a meaningful glance.

 _A little more information would have helped._

She nods.

 _Shut up, asshole. I saved your life._

Everyone else is oblivious to this little exchange and Leonard picks up where he left off, "Turns out it was the most standard of all systems so I put my device in place so that the failsafe wouldn't connect and then I escaped that freak show. But then there was a blackout and I don't remember anything after that."

"Wait, what device are we talking about?" Ray asks.

"A handy substitute for a... hand," Leonard rolls his eyes. "It's what I use to hold things in place on a heist."

"And why don't I know of this device?"

"Because you are not a thief, Raymond," Leonard drawls.

"Okay," Rip interrupts. "But how did you know the Oculus has a failsafe in the first place?"

"I'm a little confused about that too. I had these flashes of being on this ship, and I remembered Sara telling me that the Oculus had a failsafe."

"That's impossible," Rip gasps. "We stopped that from happening."

"You still want to call things impossible after merging five human beings into one?" Jax quips.

"Touché," Rip shakes his head.

* * *

They manage to find an empty room at long last.

They look at each other for the longest of time in silence, simply marveling each other and wondering how they have managed this second chance.

Neither knows who moves first but suddenly Sara is pinned against a wall, Leonard's lips pressed firmly against her: messy and desperate. It's rough and exactly what they need.

"I thought I lost you," she gasps into his mouth.

"I'm sorry," the words are genuine and they make her heart swell.

Their lips connect again with renewed ferocity and before long they find their clothes discarded, leaving two broken souls trying to fix each other.

* * *

She wakes up before he does but just as she is about to leave the bed, a strong pair of hands holds her back.

"Don't go," he whispers.

She doesn't.

* * *

"Miss Lance?" Gideon tells her much later, when she is alone in her quarters.

"Yes?"

"Can I tell you something?" Sara swears she hears hesitation in the artificial intelligence's voice.

"Of course."

"I presumed you wouldn't want the entire team to know this so I decided to inform you in private."

"Should I be worried, Gideon?"

"Of course not."

"Okay," Sara says unsurely.

"I was running a few tests on Mr. Snart when I noticed something... peculiar. It appears your kiss acted as a trigger of sorts for his memory."

"What?" Sara almost chokes on her breath.

"The first time you warned him of the Oculus was preceded by a kiss. And although we successfully rewrote those memories, your kiss before the ship landed at the Vanishing Point jogged back those memories," Gideon explains.

Sara does not know how to reply. She wants to laugh, because this is hilarious, but is unsure if that would be the appropriate response.

But Gideon continues, "A lot like true love's kiss."

And this time, Sara bursts into laughter and doesn't stop for a good ten minutes.


End file.
